Saturday, 27 February 2010

How much your intercession guides my life. You have been watching over me for longer than I know, you even made sure you would be my patron at Confirmation. I did not have a choice!

Now, you and my other great friend St Philip Neri interceed for me with the lightest of touches. Both of you are imbued with good humour and common sense. You enable me to laugh at myself and find joy amongst the hardships. You help me act patiently in all that is happening. I fully appreciate my powerlessness and I breathe in such strength from your example and intercession. Is this the meaning of being inspired?

St Rita & St Philip, help me pray for the those who are hampering our paths to health and healing, the doctors who are arrogant, the nurses who don't listen. May they wake up and smell reality and remember why they entered the health service in the first place.

Saturday, 20 February 2010

There are some little things in life that can fill me with dread. Finding a big hairy spider in the shower, having to shop for clothes, filling the car with petrol.....strange thing is, none of these things are a bad when they actually happen, I just work myself into a lather, wondering when I'll have to face up to them.

Another dread has been the Magic Roundabout in Swindon. Since hearing about it I've said a little, silly prayer, "please may I never have to negotiate this, Lord, Please". Well, guest what, today, I had to take my husband to Swindon and I had to negotiate this monstrosity. And guess what. It isn't too bad.

Prayers have a funny way of being answered so that we face our dreads head on, but with strength. It juts makes me laugh to realise that God actually cares about my silly little dreads and helps, even over the most inconsequential of things.

Thursday, 11 February 2010

Whilst my fluctuating insulin levels are causing some interest in medical circles, they are causing me some grief. My brain just will not function properly and neither will my muscles.

What is interesting to me is what I can do on auto-pilot, what I call my "default setting". It is Physics. Teaching is not easy at the moment, holding a conversation is difficult, watching the television makes me dizzy, lower school science makes no sense, blogging and reading blogs is muddling my already addled thoughts, reading books is a waste of time (I cannot retain any information) but I have no difficulty preparing a course for my yr13s on rotational dynamics. Weird, deep down the Physics must be tattooed onto the grey matter. I don't know whether I'm comforted by this or not. It must mean I actually know some Physics and know it better than I thought possible.

I've tried meditating on what it actually means to "know" something, but my brain will not let me go there.

In a similar, yet infinitely more profound way, I "know" my faith. In my illness, it is becoming more and more real, a dynamic, living and growing presence within me. I do not know where this is leading me but I can honestly say I have a sense of excitement about the future (not yet joy, some trepidation, but definitely excitement). What greater gift could anyone want than to have faith, hope and love as default settings? But isn't that what God has given every one of us?